A Very Clever Christmas
by awintea
Summary: sengoku, marui, and jirou // Wherein Marui's life sucks because Sengoku and Jirou but mostly Sengoku are in it // a very oneshot christmas.


**A Very Clever Christmas**

Here is the second of my holiday oneshots, though this one really didn't come out the way I was hoping for it to. XD I was imagining a bit more fluff and a bit less annoyance from Marui, but oh well. XD This one's dedicated to Chocolate Confection, though I have a feeling she will never read this XD

There was no pairing name for this, so I just stuck in clever - clever as in both smart and cute, because I think the three people in this are all very smart and cute XD

**x A Very Clever Christmas x 1500 words x Marui, Sengoku, and Jirou**

'Marui-sama!'

'Oi, Marui. Your fan boy's here.'

Marui sighed. When he'd gotten out of high school, this hadn't been what he had been expecting.

He hadn't been hoping to hit pro - no, he knew he wasn't really good enough for that - nor had he been planning to go out and work immediately. No, he'd been expecting to go to a moderately good local university and have a nice simple post-secondary education, after which he'd get a job, work his ass off 'til he retired, and then live the rest of his life only eating at buffets.

But fate hadn't let Marui Bunta, self-proclaimed genius, off so easily.

He'd gotten a scholarship from a nicer university than he'd expected - hell, he hadn't thought he'd get a scholarship at all, nor had he been hoping to even be accepted when he sent in his application there - under the condition that he'd join the university's tennis team. Apparently, his tennis or his grades were better than he had thought. He'd accepted immediately - his family wasn't really rich, so a full scholarship would help out a lot.

So he decided to rent out an apartment, since the university was too far for an everyday commute. He ended up renting out an apartment very close to the university - the landlady had gotten him an apartment far larger than he could afford, letting Marui have it at a discounted amount of rent so long as he would share it with another university student also in need of lodging. Marui had agreed - the apartment was three times the size of the largest apartment he could afford otherwise.

Of course, at the time Marui hadn't known that his roommate would be so damn _irritating_.

'Shut up, Sengoku,' Marui groaned, turning to face the other redhead, Sengoku Kiyosumi - Marui's roommate and the bane of Marui's current existence. Marui was sitting on the couch next to Sengoku, both of them too lazy to do anything since it was a holiday and all, though not a very _good_ one for Marui, considering. 'And _I know he's here_. I can hear him too, you know.'

Marui had been quite surprised to find out that the fellow tennis player was going to be his roommate - even pleasantly so, since Marui had thought that living with someone he already knew would be easier than living with someone he didn't.

That had been before Marui had found out that Sengoku was the most annoying person on the planet, even _including_ Niou.

'Marui-samaaaaa.'

'God, shut him up,' Marui said to no one in particular - he didn't really expect Sengoku to help. The other redhead found far too much amusement in Marui's predicament to do anything beneficial, ever.

'Sure,' Sengoku replied, grinning. He got up from the sofa and headed towards the door - was he doing what Marui _thought_ he was doing? There was the sound of a door being opened. Damn. 'Come in, Akutagawa!'

'Thanks, Sengoku!' The loud voice echoed through the apartment, and Marui was already dreading his impending doom.

'Marui-sama! Merry Christmas!' And then Marui was attacked from behind, making him sprawl onto the floor with a certain blond mass attached to his back.

Akutagawa Jirou was in the building.

'Thanks, Sengoku,' Marui grumbled, parroting Jirou except with a far more displeased tone. 'Really.'

'Merry Christmas to you too,' Sengoku replied with his signature grin and a victory sign that Marui often made himself, though he hadn't made it very often lately. Must have been because of the company. 'Doesn't get much better than this, right? Consider this my Christmas present to you.'

Marui was sure that it could get _far_ better than this, but he didn't feel like arguing. Sengoku would probably just spout some stupid garbage about their great and amazing friendship. 'You can have it back,' Marui retorted, trying to get up but to no avail. 'Get _off_ of me!'

Jirou pouted, but obliged. 'But Maruiii-sama, I came all the way here to bring you this!' He held out a present, and looked sad and pathetic and far too cute for Marui to stay angry, dammit. 'Sengoku helped me decide on what to get you!'

Marui got up from the floor, brushing off his jeans as he did so, and sent Sengoku a suspicious glance. Sengoku was grinning, as he always was. Somehow, Marui _really_ didn't want to open the present. It was flat - too flat to be food, and thus it couldn't be a really good present anyway. That and Sengoku had helped out with it - that in itself made Marui very wary.

'Open it!' Jirou said, beaming. 'Sengoku said you'd love it!'

Okay. Marui really _really_ didn't want to open the present. Sengoku's grin was somehow even wider than before.

'Yeah, open it, Marui,' Sengoku said in a mock-nice tone - Marui was sure that it was only a mock-nice tone and not a real-nice tone because, well, he just _was_. Sengoku had a way of seeming nice but not really being nice, but it seemed that only Marui thought so - all the other people hoping for an English major at the university (unluckily, Marui and Sengoku were coincidentally in the same course, along with Marui's blond fan boy) thought Sengoku was cool and super awesome.

Really, only Marui could be lucky enough to have both the most annoying person in the world and a stalkerish fan boy in his university course, both of whom he had to see on daily basis.

'I hope you like it,' Sengoku added cheerfully. 'I put a lot of thought into it, since Akutagawa had been nice enough to come to me for advice, since I'm the one who knows you _best_.'

Yeah, Marui was definitely sure that he was right.

He tentatively unwrapped the present, which left an innocuous-looking booklet in his hands. He flipped it over and looked at the title: Akutagawa Jirou's LOVE LOVE COUPONS . The booklet was pink and white with little heart stickers and sparkles all over it. Marui looked at his hands: some of the sparkles were coming off.

'What the hell?' Marui asked, addressing Sengoku, who was grinning from ear to ear.

'Don't you like it?' Sengoku replied, looking immensely pleased with himself. 'Akutagawa made 'round twenty or so, I think.'

Marui flipped through the coupon book quickly, scanning each coupon with a face that grew steadily more incredulous. Love love massages? Love love meals? Love love gay se- 'What the _fuck_, Sengoku!'

'I gave him some suggestions on types of coupons,' Sengoku explained. Marui wanted to punch the grin off his face.

'I got you this 'cause Sengoku said you didn't get enough love,' Jirou said with wide, innocent eyes. God, Marui couldn't even stay _angry_ at him, as annoying and stupid as he was. It was a conspiracy - Sengoku with his personality that everyone except Marui thought great and Jirou with his creepy stalkerish fan boy qualities but too cute face - it just wasn't _fair_ when the two of them worked together, though Marui supposed it was more of a boss and minion situation with Sengoku and Jirou, with Jirou not knowing that he was unwittingly being manipulated. 'You like it, right?'

Marui paused. To lie or not to lie, that was the question - and the answer was obvious. '...Thank you.'

'Yay!' Jirou cheered, glomping Marui violently so that both of them ended up on the floor again. He kissed Marui on the cheek and got up, running out the door, but not before yelling again 'Merry Christmas, Marui-sama, and thank you very much, Sengoku!'

'Love coupons?' Marui demanded, glaring at Sengoku. Marui got up and brushed himself off _again_, only to be grabbed by Sengoku.

Why not? Merry Christmas, Marui,' Sengoku replied impishly, pulling Marui over so he could plant a kiss on his cheek too.

Marui coloured instantly. 'Leave me alone, you fucking pervert!' He took something out of his pocket (and no, it wasn't Sengoku's present - of _course_ not - because Marui wouldn't buy Sengoku a present because Marui _hated _him) and threw it down onto the sofa, pushing Sengoku away immediately afterwards. 'I hope you choke on this,' he said irately, and returned to his room.

Marui could hear Sengoku chuckling even with his door closed. Damn him.

This really hadn't been what Marui had been expecting when he'd gotten out of high school - perhaps a simple Christmas, all by himself was what he'd been planning on having, but Marui couldn't say that this life wasn't more _interesting_ and sometimes he thought that this sort of life was better than what he had hoped for before -

'Oi, thanks for the chocolate, Marui!' Sengoku's voice drifted through the door, cheery and irritating as always. 'I don't have a present for you though - could I make you some of those love love coupons too?'

- but then Marui remembered that he was still living with Sengoku and then realised just how much his life _sucked_.

And he hadn't even gotten any food out of either. 

**x owari**

And there it is! I had quite a problem with the ending, so I'm hoping it turned out okay. If you spot any errors, just tell - this wasn't beta-ed and thus probably has tons of typos and such.

Was this awful? Funny? Stupid? Do drop a review to tell. -awinchan


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